With less than 100 days until the 2024 Olympics in Paris, it’s time for athletes to earn a spot on Team USA.
And in many high-profile sports, that means coming off an Olympic challenge.
The first big test of spring will be wrestling, which will be held this weekend at the Bryce Jordan Center in State College, Pa., home of three-time college champion Penn State.
The two-day event will feature competition in all 18 Olympic weight classes, including six each in men’s freestyle, women’s freestyle and Greco-Roman. Since countries are not allowed to enter more than one wrestler in each weight class at the Olympics, only the champions of each weight class can qualify for Paris. And the United States has yet to qualify in five of the 18 weight classes, meaning even those winners may not ultimately qualify for the Olympics.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Olympic wrestling trials.
When are the Olympic wrestling trials held?
The U.S. Olympic Wrestling Trials will be held on Friday and Saturday, with a morning session (starting at 10 a.m.) and an evening session (starting at 6:30 p.m.) each day. They began Friday morning with the opening round of the challenge tournament.
Here’s the full schedule:
Friday, 10am to 3:30pm: Challenge tournament preliminaries and quarterfinals
Friday, 6:30pm to 10pm: Challenge Tournament Semi-Finals/Finals
Saturday, 10am to 3pm: The first round of the best-of-three championship series for all styles and weight classes, plus the second round for the five weight classes that have not yet qualified for the Olympics, as well as a repechage and third-place match for the challenge tournament.
Saturday, 6:30pm to 10:00pm: Rounds 2 and 3 of best-of-three championship series (if required)
Olympic Trials Wrestling Frame and Format
In Olympic trials in sports such as track and field, all athletes must qualify, while in wrestling, the top athletes receive a bye in the semifinals or finals.
This creates a two-layer bracket format. Challenge tournaments are a traditional bracket-style format where the winner of each match advances, with a best-of-three championship final, usually with a big name winner in store. Among the winners who qualify for the final are Olympic medalists Kyle Dake, Adeline Gray, Helen Maroulis, David Taylor and Kyle Snyder.
Live complete brackets for each style and weight class can be found here.
USA Wrestling posted easy-to-understand standings for men’s freestyle, women’s freestyle and Greco-Roman on social media earlier this week.
How to watch the Olympic Wrestling Trials live stream
The two night sessions will air on USA Network on Friday and Saturday at 6:30 p.m. However, all sessions (both morning and evening) are also streamed on Peacock, which not only offers separate streams for each individual match, but also ‘quad-box’ which allows viewers to watch multiple matches simultaneously. doing.
The event will also be streamed on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app.
Featured names
In men’s freestyle, perhaps the brightest spotlight will be on the 74kg division, where 2012 Olympic gold medalist Jordan Burroughs, 35, will be looking to regain his spot on the U.S. team in what will be his final Olympic cycle. do. He previously said he would retire at the end of 2024. If he makes it out of the challenge bracket, he will have to face Dak, the Tokyo bronze medalist and four-time world champion who defeated him at the 2021 Olympic Trials.
Three other 2021 Olympic medalists are participating, including Snyder (97kg) and Taylor (86kg), who won silver and gold medals, respectively, at the Tokyo Olympics. Thomas Gilman, the second seed in the 57kg weight class, will also be competing for the second time.
In women’s freestyle, the United States has current Olympic and world medalists competing in all six weight classes at the Olympic Trials. Gray, who won a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics, is aiming for her Olympic return after she gives birth to her twins in 2022. An up-and-coming star to watch is 20-year-old Amit Errol, who already has two world titles under his belt at a non-Olympic weight of 72kg. She will compete at the trials weighing 68kg.
Greco-Roman is arguably Team USA’s weakest style, but Alan Vera (97 kg) and Spencer Woods (87 kg) are among the top contenders in that weight class.
Olympic wrestling weight class (in pounds)
Since the United States does not use the metric system, you may be wondering what these weight classes mean in pounds. please do not worry.
Below are the Olympic weight classes rounded to the nearest pound. His five weight classes, where Team USA has not secured him a spot in the 2024 Paris Olympics, are marked with an asterisk.
men’s freestyle
- *57kg: 126 pounds
- *65kg: 143 pounds
- 74kg: 163 pounds
- 86kg: 190 pounds
- 97kg: 214 pounds
- 125kg: 276 pounds
women’s freestyle
- 50kg: 110 pounds
- 53kg: 117 pounds
- 57kg: 126 pounds
- 62kg: 137 pounds
- 68kg: 150 pounds
- 76kg: 168 pounds
greco roman
- *60kg: 132 pounds
- *67kg: 148 pounds
- *77kg: 170 pounds
- 87kg: 192 pounds
- 97kg: 214 pounds
- 130kg: 287 pounds
Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @Tom_Schad.
